The First Time and the Second
by in48frames
Summary: Post-5x09.


**A/N:**_ I mean what, of course I'm still on hiatus. My ghost is posting this._

* * *

They walk out to the car, hands in pockets and heads ducked low. That morning they carpooled, so Deeks drove them to the restaurant and Deeks drives them back to his place. She's done the tour, she knows the layout, so they don't talk. Inside the door, Deeks turns to her briefly helpless, palms up, and she takes control, pushing him up against the door and kissing him, one hand at his collarbone and the other driving her fingers into his hair.

She sets the pace, sets the tone, and they go at it, tearing at clothes and nipping at lips (necks ears shoulders) until she pushes him back onto the bed, naked. She doesn't pause, doesn't hesitate, because she knows she can't. She straddles him and cries out, leans down and kisses him to occupy her mouth.

When it's over, she curls up on her side, as close to the edge as possible, and thinks, _Fuck_. Tears are there, biting at the backs of her eyes, and she closes her eyelids tight. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

She tries to avoid the thought, thinks about getting dressed and leaving, but she can't move; she curls more tightly into a ball and thinks, _That wasn't what I wanted. Why did I do that? I didn't want that._

She regrets it. One of her biggest reasons for holding out this long was fear of regret, and now she's gone and done it, hasn't she? She fucked it up. She did.

The tears slip out and she scrubs at them with her fists, so caught up in her hurricane of self-loathing she barely has a thought to spare for Deeks. She turns her face into the pillow to absorb the tears, smashes it closer with her hands, and starts to shake.

That's when she feels his hand on her back and she flinches away.

"Hey," he says, and she turns her head only, looks back over her shoulder at him, one eye squinted shut. He's just sitting there, boxers on, legs akimbo, looking at her, and she feels so stupid. "I'm not sure if I'm supposed to be detecting flattery here…" and she can't help the burst of air through her nose, almost a laugh. Slowly, she reaches for the sheet, turns, sits, staring at her lap.

"I feel like an idiot," she says.

"Just talk to me, Kens."

"This," but she can't complete the sentence. "It wasn't…"

"Oh god, did I suck?" His tone is so gentle and she peeks up at him. He looks worried, just worried, about her.

She takes a breath, holds it, then says, "I didn't want this to be something we could just throw away the next day. Pretend it never happened. But I guess we did that," her eyes start leaking again, and she whispers, "I didn't want that. Of all things, you know?"

Deeks is quiet for a moment, then he reaches out, brushes her hair off her shoulder and gently runs his hand down her arm. "You know," he says quietly, "We can try again."

The same laugh huffs out her nose, and she squints up at him, sniffling. He watches her calmly, seriously, and she bites her lip and nods, looking back to her lap as the tears leak out.

"Just give me, like, half an hour," he says, "during which I am willing to cuddle."

"What makes you think I like to cuddle," she says to her lap.

"We were married once. I think your bed-hogging ways were more a subconscious plea than anything."

Finally he gets a real laugh out of her, and she glances up again, then faces him properly. He's smiling, just a little, still watchful. She cocks her head at him, then lies down and scooches to the middle of the bed. He lies down too, wrapping his arms around her, and after a moment (a long moment), she relaxes.

One arm is pinned between them, her palm pressed to his chest, and the other winds around to his back. She consciously goes through and relaxes each of her muscle groups one by one, something she learned in therapy once, and as she settles in she becomes highly aware of the solidity of Deeks, and she hums, closing her eyes. His arms around her are strong, his chin rests on the top of her head, and then he starts stroking her hair and she hums again, pressing her forehead to his chest.

They don't almost fall asleep. There is no drowsiness. And when Deeks shifts and clears his throat and says, "Ready when you are," Kensi tips her head back. For a moment they lock eyes, and blink, and then Deeks lowers his head and kisses her in the soft, sweet, slow way he dreamt about when he had to leave his physical body behind.

Kensi closes her eyes and wraps her free hand around the back of his neck and feels the biting regret turn to roiling emotion, almost more than she can stand. She knows this is why she rushed it the first time, because it feels—it feels—it feels more than she has felt in years, and she's not sure she can take it. But now she knows how it feels to try to avoid those feelings and she won't be doing that again.

They hardly move, hardly need to move, their bodies languid and flowing into each other. And it's everything Kensi knew it would be. And everything has changed.

She ends up in exactly the same place, her forehead pressed to his chest and his arms tight around her. She says, muffled, "Are you okay with this?"

Deeks moves his hand back to her hair and says, "I wouldn't have done it if I wasn't."

"What if it's too much?"

There's a long pause, and Kensi's breaths start to come faster, but he's still stroking her hair.

Finally, he says softly, "It's worth it," and Kensi's face twitches into a smile and then out of it, and into it again.

She kisses his chest and says, "Yeah."

He kisses the top of her head and says, "Yeah."

And they smile in opposite directions, at nothing.

And neither one of them can tell if they get any sleep that night, because dreaming and waking are too close together.

And everything has changed.


End file.
